New Orleans Film Festival 2009

Working backwards through history, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo explores the mysterious developments of Japan's age-old love affair with bugs. Sold live in vending machines and department stores, the subject of the No. 1 videogame MushiKing and from the smallest backyard to the top of Mt. Fuji, insects inspire an enthusiasm in Japan seen nowhere else in this world. Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo solves the mystery of why Japan developed this enriching social relationship with insects while other first-world countries developed a terror of these many-legged beings. Interspersed with the philosophies of one of Japan’s best-selling authors and anatomist, Dr. Takeshi Yoro, and scattered with poetry and art from Japan’s history, this film becomes about much more than insects. Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is set to the rhythm of traditional Japanese values, attention to detail, harmony, and the appreciation of the seemingly mundane. The film quietly challenges the viewer to observe the world from an uncommon perspective that will shift the familiar to the fantastic and just might change not only the way we think about bugs, but the way we think about life.